


Sky and Its Procedures

by citrinevaliance



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Tolkien Secret Santa 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 22:32:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17129942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrinevaliance/pseuds/citrinevaliance
Summary: A millenia later, it rains.





	Sky and Its Procedures

**Author's Note:**

  * For [martial_quill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/martial_quill/gifts).



> _A blue-green leaving feeling._  
>  _To no longer belong to a body sometimes_  
>  _open to air._  
>  _In rain, in early morning rain._  
>  -Peter Gizzi "A Winding Sheet for Summer"

The rain washes everything clean; that’s one thing all those humans got right.

Goldberry tips her head up, letting the raindrops roll over her eyelids. A roll of thunder booms, distant, and the rain swells, washing down on the leaves of the tree behind her. She hums absentmindedly— something old and full of runs— and hears a snort of laughter from behind her. Goldberry turns to see a smiling young woman in heeled combat boots holding a clear umbrella.

“You really should stop doing this in the middle of campus."

Goldberry laughs, the sound mixing with the patter of the rain until the two are indistinguishable. She looks down at herself and laughs again, flexing her bare toes in the mud.

“They’ve seen weirder,” she responds, still smiling.

The woman snorts again. “You’re such a hippie.” She offers Goldberry the umbrella. Goldberry refuses and the woman shrugs, unsurprised.

“Not for a while.”

The woman rolls her eyes fondly. “Hurry it up. I made a pot of tea before realizing you were gone and if it gets cold I’ll give the grad students a day off and make you grade the undergrad midterms.”

Goldberry pulls a face. “I’m coming.”

She stretches her arms and lifts her face to the sky one final time.

She breathes in.

There is iron in the air, harsh and metallic, coming off the wild dance of the electrons in the clouds, spinning fast and violent. They clash, and a roll of thunder sounds. In split second between the crash the lightning, she hears a grasshopper’s heart beating slow and steady as the second stretches into a small eternity.

A raindrop falls to the grass.

The worms move just below the surface, brought up by the promise of moisture. Below them, below the roots of the oak behind her, below the hollow caverns filled with gravel and water beneath her feet, is a sea of magma, burning, brilliant and endless. Every second brings a pulse, the steady heartbeat of the earth as each wave nearly crests, but falls, too heavy with the weight of a thousand dead suns to do anything but swirl in languorous cycles.

She breathes out, and the iron in her mouth dissipates.

The woman quirks one eyebrow up at her, but doesn’t say anything. Goldberry shrugs, smile returning to her face, and a corner of the woman’s mouth twists into a wry grin in response.

“Come on,” the woman repeats. “You can find nirvana tomorrow. The water is getting cold.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title was also taken from "A Winding Sheet for Summer". If you'd like to read the full version, you can find it here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/89361/a-winding-sheet-for-summer


End file.
